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Category Archives: Ideas

Opposing But Equal Truths

Seth Godin and Chris Brogan are two of my favorites. Seth has been around for decades. He writes best-selling business books. He lectures. And everything that comes out of his mouth could be its own TED conference.
Chris’s expertise is rooted in new technologies. To everyone who reads him, it would appear the man never sleeps. [...]

Does This Crowd Want To Be Sourced?

My position on crowdsourcing is so on-the-fence that a stiff breeze in one direction or the other would send me toppling to either side.
On the one hand, it’s a brilliant way to engage fans/consumers/friends with your brand. Instead of pushing an internally generated idea, you invite participation in shaping its course. There are great examples [...]

Want To Get Hired? Stop Looking For A Job

“Don’t be the person looking for a job. Be the person doing something interesting.”
That was a quote from our interview with Lisa Hickey, who has not-so-quietly reinvented herself from a traditional advertising creative director into the self-made queen of social media strategy.
Point is, you can smell a job seeker from a mile away. Job seekers [...]

Wow, I Wish I Could Go To This

Next Thursday, October 1st, in NYC, The Feast Conference will gather the minds that are making the world a better place. From their web site:
Our secret sauce lies in a healthy combination of passion, creativity, and entrepreneurship to shift the way things are done. “The Feast” brings together the world’s leading creative entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, radicals, [...]

Was Donald Draper An Animal?

Political Animals – By Greg Thomas

If you are reading this blog, you hardly need to be told that advertising, and those of us who practice it, took a real body blow in this recession. And the people I know who have been bloodied seem to have one of three reactions to it.

A few people who use it as inspiration or [...]

New Habits Are Born Hard – By Greg Thomas

“What else you got?”
We’ve all heard it. Many of us have asked it. It’s code in our business for “the ideas you have are not fresh.” And we’ve all learned how to push ourselves to try and find fresh ideas. We know the tricks — change your patterns, force yourself into a different mode of [...]

Stop Waiting for the Rain and Make Your Own Weather

In Ad-Job Drought, It’s Time to Think Outside the Industry
by Erik Proulx
This article originally appeared in the TalentWorks section of Advertising Age.
During sustained droughts, the yellow-bellied slider turtle instinctively relocates toward the direction of the nearest body of water. He doesn’t wait in cracked mud for a deluge that will never arrive. He doesn’t look [...]

Are You One Of The Untouchables?

Every agency has their Untouchables. Those few, proud right hand men and women who are the last to go. They are the rain makers and award winners. They bring a little bit extra and contribute more than they’re paid.
One thing’s for sure. They aren’t dispassionate or un-opinionated. The people who’s jobs are most safe aren’t [...]

An Open Letter To Virgin America

Dear Virgin America,
Next Tuesday, I will be traveling to Los Angeles with a small crew of big-hearted film makers to shoot a documentary about a few of the 70,000 + folks in the advertising industry who have lost their jobs. These are people who, rather than wallow and wait around for the phone to ring, [...]